RuneScape reaches 200 million player accounts

443 billion minutes of game time since the game launched in 2001.

RuneScape has reached the monumental milestone of 200 million registered player accounts, Jagex has announced. The figure comes 11 years after its launch in 2001.

Over the last 11 years, RuneScape's MMO world has been home to players from more than 150 countries, and If RuneScape were a country it would be the 5th largest population in the world. All those players have invested a lot of time in the game, too, racking up in excess of 443 billion minutes of game time so far.

"Although RuneScape has achieved so much over the past decade, smashing 200 million accounts is a huge accomplishment for the dedicated development team and is thanks to our awesome community," commented Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard. "When the game was first released, nobody could ever have expected it would reach such high levels of popularity largely by community word of mouth. It has been an incredible journey to get to where we are today, and by continuing our tradition of constantly innovating, evolving and lovingly crafting RuneScape we are certain to continue to break records by creating an online adventure like no other. We've witnessed a really strong resurgence in the game's popularity over the past two years and are seeing strong player growth year on year."

Jagex will mark the 200 million account milestone by holding in-game celebrations for everyone. According to Jagex "a brand new demon has been discovered, with the health of 200 million hit points! This epic demon can only be defeated with a unique weapon developed specifically for this landmark celebration, and successful demon slayers will be rewarded with a unique item."